An extraordinary story of how six children became the first astronauts to go to Mars.

Sunday, 29 April 2018

Manuscript Delivered and Drawing Rockets

Manuscript

Since reaching our pledge target the next step has been to prepare the manuscript for the editorial team.

No small matter, as the script needed reducing by 30,000 words to 115,000. I shall no doubt be re-cycling them in book two!

Broken computer aside, The final version was presented last Monday and I'm looking forward to working with my editor.

Illustrations

The illustrations for the later half of the draft were in colour and designed and generated in my design application (see above), the book will be printed in black and white.

I can't just draw convincing space vehicles and needed to design them in detail. They will be the stage for much of the next book and have to be authentic. It is also fun and makes a change from buildings! (see section)

The early illustrations are hand drawn and I have worked up a technique for re-drawing the computer generated images and adding detail so that they will be a coherent set of drawings. (Here is the finished article.)

I'd like to thank Ruky, Ana, Joel, Jan, Lin, Giles, Chiara, Sara, Maryja & Lee, Andy, Naomi, Carlo, Sylive and Katharine for the final pledges to get us over the line.

We also generated another $100 to send to the orphanage which has helped buy winter clothes for the kids.